FONTANA >> In a battle between the top two teams in the Sunkist League baseball standings, it was hard to tell which team won by talking to the coaches.

“We know that play; we just didn’t execute,” Bloomington High School coach Ernie Prieto said. “This team is better than that.”

“I’m not happy,” Kaiser coach Mike Spinuzzi said. “We came out flat. We have to play team baseball and we didn’t do that today.”

While Spinuzzi might not have been happy, his team still had too much and overwhelmed Bloomington, 11-3, Wednesday afternoon at Kaiser.

The victory gave Kaiser (16-2, 8-0) a three-game lead over Bloomington (12-6, 5-3) and Summit with just seven games remaining. Kaiser and Bloomington play each other for the final time this season on Friday at Bloomington.

The bottom line was that Prieto liked the start, while Spinuzzi preferred the finish.

That’s because it wasn’t until the fifth inning that Kaiser scored seven runs to break open a game that had been 4-2.

In that inning, not only did Huber Mann, Oscar Rocha and Jason Lopez deliver run-scoring hits, but Juan Barriga executed a hit-and-run single that helped get the inning going. Earlier in the game, Barriga had executed a safety squeeze bunt that went for an RBI single.

“He does a good job of handling the bat for us,” Spinuzzi said.

But also in that inning was the play that Prieto said on which his team lacked execution. It was a Kaiser staple: the runners on first and third, draw the throw to first so the runner on third can steal home play. Kaiser executed it and Bloomington got neither runner out. Had the Bruins at least gotten the runner on first, then only one of the seven Kaiser runs in the inning would’ve scored.

“We run that play,” Prieto said. “Everybody knows what they’re supposed to do.”

In addition to Barriga, there was room for other praise from Spinuzzi.

Starting pitcher Alex Martinez, who entered the game having thrown only 6 1/3 innings all year, battled into the fourth inning before he tired. Although pitching coach Rob Ridge felt Martinez gave up too many two-strike hits, Spinuzzi had praise.

“Going into this week we had three games, we knew were going to need to use him,” Spinuzzi said. “He did a good job. It was just a question of how long he was going to last.”

There was also room for praise for Kaiser third baseman Jacob Gonzales, who came up with a key defensive play in the fourth inning. Bloomington had scored two runs in the inning on a Marco Carbajal two-run single to cut the Bruins’ deficit to 3-2 and had the bases loaded with two outs when Martinez was replaced by Jorge Mondragon on the mound.

Bloomington’s Javier Hernandez hit a popup not far from home plate in fair territory just a few feet towards third base. With no one else taking charge, Gonzales raced in and made a diving catch to end the inning.

“We was the only one who went after it,” Spinuzzi said.

“Right when it was hit, I knew I had to come in clutch,” Gonzales said. “One of us was going to make the play.”

Gonzales said he noticed the team seemed a little sluggish at the outset.

“Coming into the game, some of our teammates had the mindset that we just need to kick back,” Gonzales said. “Once the game actually starts, we need to capitalize on their mistakes instead of ours.”

Prieto is looking for something more from his team in Friday’s game.

“We haven’t beaten them in so long, so when we come to play them it’s like we’re already beaten,” he said. “We have one more game against them. Hopefully we can show something.”

Pete Marshall started his career as a freelancer for The Sun in 1991, then later was hired full time by the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in 1995. Since then he has covered a variety of sports for the Daily Bulletin and The Sun, primarily high school sports and minor league baseball. He's been doing it long enough that he's now covering the children of student-athletes he covered when he first started.

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